Residential Real Estate Brokerage

Residential Real Estate Brokerage covers the agents and brokerages that represent buyers and sellers of homes, earning commissions on transactions. At ~$179B (the broad agents-and-brokers category, residential-dominated) it is one of the most fragmented industries in the economy — roughly 1.5 million agents across franchises (Keller Williams, RE/MAX, Compass, eXp, Anywhere) and independents.

Revenue is highly transaction-volume-sensitive — the ~10% growth reflects the 2021–22 boom, since reversed by the rate-driven collapse in home sales — and the industry faces its most significant disruption ever from the NAR commission settlement, which unbundles buyer-agent commissions and pressures the ~5–6% commission model. It is fragmented and consolidating, with technology-enabled and discount models, team-based brokerages, and commission compression reshaping economics.